


all the ways

by greekdemigod



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drabble, M/M, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 13:30:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14450283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greekdemigod/pseuds/greekdemigod
Summary: The Second Wizarding War is about to start, so evidently Seamus can't help but think about how damned easy it is to love Dean Thomas.





	all the ways

**Author's Note:**

> As I was going through my old works (written in Dutch, throwback), I remembered how proud I was of this one, so I decided to translate it and post it on here.
> 
> (Sorry to my dear wlw crowd that might've gotten excited about the notification for this story only to realize it's not JTV/Roisa. One day, bbs. One day soon.)
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

In another universe, Dean Thomas would be as appreciated as the boys he shared a dormitory with. When the Sorting Hat told him in 1991 that he could be smart and creative and loyal just fine in the House that would teach him to be brave, it was decided that he would spend seven long years being pushed into the shadows.

But not by me.

Although content to stay in the background, although the first to say that he didn’t covet the spotlight anyway, I always made sure he knew he deserved the attention just as much.

—and it is so easy to love him when he makes no problems of befriending a boy that, within one single week, almost poisons his own drink _and_ puts his eyebrows on fire;

—when even in the early stages of our developing friendship he spends hours upon hours helping me with my homework and explaining things in his simple clarity that make me get high grades for the first time ever;

—even easier when he stays up all night to draw posters for Harry’s first and second and every Quidditch match;

—when he spends our second year slinking to the library every evening to find something (something, _something_ ) and breaks his own heart over and over when he doesn’t;

I didn’t even wonder if my feelings were genuine, never had a crisis over them. Dean being too good to be true, I knew that from day one, and it didn’t take me much longer to discover that it is so easy to get lost in my affection for him.

Seeing him with his four sisters during Summer break, seeing him with Luna when everyone else found her too weird to spend even a minute on her, only confirmed what I had already known: Dean Thomas would have been the hero of the story if Harry Potter didn’t exist. And in that universe he would get it all: know his father, make it to the Quidditch team early, get a Timeturner to follow more classes.

—the first time I think of kissing him on his brave, stupid mouth is when he stands up for Lupin to Umbridge;

—the first time I think of more is when I see him play;

—it is damned easy to fall in love with him;

Even when he stuck with goddamn Potter, even when the lad could have been a liar and a murderer, even when that bloody selfish bastard stole his girlfriend.

I couldn’t hate Ginny; I wanted Dean for myself, but she made him so happy; so, so happy, even more smiling than usual, even more friendliness for no reason other than that friendliness didn’t need one, even more upbeat and energized and—happy.

Ginny I couldn’t hate, but Harry, oh, I could.

I don’t just think about all the ways it is easy to love him when I finally see him again, here, now, in the Room of Requirements, tension thick and brewing. I also think about all the ways it was hard.

—it is painful to love him when he is somewhere ( _somewhere_ ), but maybe he isn’t, maybe he’s nowhere;

Last year was torture. Every night it took longer before I fell asleep, staring at the empty bed next to mine. Everyone else, they noticed the empty seats where Harry and Ron and Hermione had been, but never that gaping void where Dean had been.

—it is easy to leave Dean even when he isn’t there, but it is hard to handle the emptiness he left behind.

This new version of Hogwarts would have broken his heart; a Hogwarts without him breaks mine.

I think about all those things as I walk up to him, as I wrap my arms around his body. He is still taller than me, thinner, bones poking into me, but he is here and I am here.

—it is the hardest thing I have ever done, loving him when we are in the biggest battle of the wizarding community, knowing that he could die, realizing that would tear me apart, and still be happy;

—because he is here.

 

I think about all those things, later, while Aberforth hands us glasses of firewhiskey, and I think that I will tell him, sometime, soon, maybe.

But we have _years_ before us. Peaceful, long years.

I do think, quietly, about all the ways in which I love him and all the ways in which he has made it so easy for me, and I will add one more reason—that we can sit in the Great Hall together, with our shoulders pressed together and a stiff drink in our bloody hands, and that that’s enough to smile for.

 

In another universe, everyone loves Dean Thomas; in this universe I shoulder the noble task alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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